The invention relates to a lift, especially a two-post lift for motor vehicles, with one lifting carriage attached to each post, capable of being lifted and lowered in a vertical direction and provided with horizontally slewable supporting arms which support a motor vehicle and including a slewing lock, whereby a laterally displaced slewable clamping bar is provided which is mounted on the lifting carriage on one side and on the supporting arm on the other side.
A lift of this general type is described in an application for a German utility patent G 76 10 847. With this lift, each supporting arm is provided with a clamping bar which can be swung around an axle or a fulcrum respectively laterally displaced with respect to the pivotal point of the supporting arm and which has a clamping device consisting of two clamping plates, each of which features a borehole or opening.
One disadvantage of this arrangement is that the operator has to release the locking system with one hand and swing round the supporting arm with the other hand. As this swing movement must be partly carried out beneath the motor vehicle to be raised, this is a very complicated and time-consuming procedure.
Such a locking system is required for safety reasons, in order to prevent unintentional swing movements. A supporting arm which is possibly not loaded during lifting due to any circumstances or load shifts must be prevented from swinging to the outside owing to percussions or impacts, while work is done on the lift, so that the vehicle is supported at three points only and may tumble down in the event of the smallest load shift.
It is an aim of the present invention to produce a lift, the locking system of which can be released quickly and easily so that it is possible to swing around the supporting arm, whereby the slewing lock of the supporting arms prevents unintentional swing movements in a horizontal plane.
This aim is achieved according to the invention in that the clamping bar is telescopic and force-clamped by means of reciprocally acting springs through clamping bodies, and in that a sliding piece is provided which releases the one clamping body series in each case when actuated in one direction, so that the supporting arm can then be swung in the desired direction by moving the sliding piece further.